Your Ultimate Nerdy Time-Travel Trip: And the Winners Are…

?I… I got no intro this time. The entries were awesome and it was hard to choose as always, but… yeah, no intro. My apologies. To make up for it I’ve added a (very) few comments after some of the HMs, which are after the jump with the winners, as always.

Mentions! Honor!

Theoban:

I’d go back to 1983 and have sex with the clone of Hitler who killed George Lucas for giving my younger self a sports almanac, that bastard.

Andrew Sofman:

I’d go into the future and use that 5 minutes to steal the blueprints for a more advanced time machine.

Iggy:

Easy, go back to the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, find Edison, and punch that rat bastard in the face. Tesla might have been a pacifist, but I like to think he’d be happy about that.

Lots of Edison hate in this week’s contest… as is natural and appropriate.

chris:

I would travel back to 1992. This is the year that epic Crossfire commercial came out. I would knock out the curly haired kid who won, and take that snazzy leather jacket off of him. Then I would play his role to perfection. I will get caught up in the crossfire. Also, I will yell, “FUCK YEAH!” as the loser is shot away to his presumably torturous, painful death. If you read my lips over the fantastic music you will notice.

Taranaich:

36 West, Cross Plains, Texas. 11th June 1936, 08:00 hours. A man is about to get into his car and commit suicide. I aim to stop him.

Sorry it isn’t very funny, it’s just the first thing that popped into my head and I can’t think of anything else.

Brackin Markins:

Roll back a few decades and grab Action Comics 1 and Detective Comics 27. I’d sell Action Comics at auction today, make a load of coin. I’d then put Detective Comics up for sale, only to light it on fire before the final bid. With my millions of dollars I will have found a way to collect and bathe in nerd tears. Sweet, sweet tears.

Lots of people buying Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27, too, but only Brackin here was such a bastard as to burn one of them. That kind of bastardry gets you an HM on Topless Robot.

Nicnacnic:

April/May, 1990. I would do everything I can to reach Jim Henson and tell him he has a severe form of strep and needs to go to the hospital before it’s too late.

Jedieb:

I’d travel back in time to the day I saw The Empire Strikes Back. I was in first grade and in a nerd frenzy all day. As I was walking down the hallway a douchebag shouted out: “Darth Vader is Luke’s father!”

I’d travel back in time 5 minutes before that horrific encounter, find that 10 year old punk and punch him in the balls. Then drag his ass off school property. Mission Accomplished.

Brent Sienna:

Travel to the date the winner is chosen for this contest, copy it and enter it here and steal the winning entry for my own. Not the best use of time travel but I would win for once…sweet glorious victory would be mine!

Selephiel:

I’d travel back in time to when Karen Gillan was a child so she would grow up completely infatuated with me, growing up obsessed with someone she met once, and then I’ll contact her in the present and she’ll fall madly in love with me.

Clever and exceedingly creepy.

SlyDante:

Much like Andrew Sofman, I’d skip over the cliched idea of heading back to the past & go straight to the future (say, a couple hundred or even a thousand years from now), where I would immediately purchase/check out from the library all of the history books covering the past time period.

Why? So that when I return back to the present, I can write the ultimate sci-fi novel about/involving the upcoming futures, using those from the history books. Then when the events actually happen, people will wonder “How did he know??” & the book will start to develop a following until it bcomes unbelievably popular, & I become rich & famous because of it.

Eventually, I get labelled as a genius, & a cult potentially follows. I become crazed with power & start using the knowledge to become semi-omnipotent.
…And then I write a book about THAT. No matter what, I’LL BE A LIVING GOD.

DoctorSmashy:

1962. Change Stan Lee’s last name to ‘Pee’ on the cover of Spider-Man #1. Sit back, grin, and watch the Marvel empire crumble under the ever increasing might of DC comics before it is even created.
Because seriously dude, fuck Bono.

Someguy:

I would go back about 6 months. Timing it to a day when my wife and I was walking down this weird business hallway that had a wall in the middle with many non-door doorway openings. I would time it to start walking at the same moment that my past self and my wife were walking down the hallway on the other side of the wall so it looked like it was really a whole bunch of mirrors so that I could see the look on my wife’s face when she realized that she didn’t have a reflection. I mean why do anything meaningful when you could pull of a joke like that.

Batgirl311:

I would go back in time to the night of my 11th birthday and lovingly explain to the tiny sobbing version of myself that just because you didn’t get a letter to Hogwarts doesn’t mean the world is over. I would also tell her that if she actually goes through with throwing out every fantasy/sci-fi book and toy she owns in a fit of nerd rage I would come back and beat the hell out of her.

Hailinel:

I’d travel back to China’s Three Kingdoms era, and, using historical knowledge of the age and over 1800 years of advanced military history, become one of the most fearsome warlords China has ever seen. Then when the smoke has cleared and I either have nothing left to accomplish or have cornered myself into an inevitable early demise, travel back to the present in order to see how badass I am in the latest Dynasty Warriors game.

This is totally impossible in five minutes but is such a genius idea I allowed it as an HM.

Everlurker:

I’d go back to the Library of Alexandria before it was destroyed, and consequences be damned, I’d leave them a Browning 50 cal machine gun, a million rounds, and show them how to use it.

The Powerful Turtle:

I’d travel back in time and catch Carmen Sandiego

Thiefofhearts:

I’d travel back in time to 2007 to prevent the Cartoon Network Boston Bomb Scare from ever happening. This would prevent Jim Samples, head of CN, from being forced to step down and Stuart Snyder from being promoted. Why is this important? Snyder got rid of Toonami, created the live programming blocks on a network made for cartoons and finally alienating talented people like Craig “Power Puff Girls” McCraken and Genndy “Samurai Jack” Tartakovsky forcing them to jump ship after canceling Cartoonstitute and Sym-Bionic Titan.

That’s right, I’d travel back in time in hopes I’d get a second season of a John Hughes Teen Drama/Giant Robot mash up and keep a channel from suffering the MTV affect. But mainly the former.

NoMoreSanity:

Go back to sometime around 40 BC, taking a fully-combined Power Rangers mech toy with me. There, I would confront Julius Caesar and the Senate of Rome, telling them that this mech was a symbol of the one true pantheon of Gods, who when combined form the magnificent, plastic shooting figure. This would somehow cause them to worship the Power Rangers and all the memorabilia I brought along with me would now count as sacred relics. With the new Pagan Gods of Power Rangers established in the Roman Pantheon, Christianity does not find it’s large popular support, due to Constantine not seeing a comet during the battle that converted him to the faith, due to him wearing a full ensemble Red Ranger outfit. Power Rangers cosplay becomes the de facto standard of dress for the Roman Empire, which quickly expands beyond its historical borders due to the need to satiate the unquenchable bloodlust of the Sacred Holy Rangers.

… I just wrote a hypothetical scenario involving the Power Rangers becoming the dominant Gods of Rome. I don’t know whether to feel sickened with myself or awesome.

Awesome. Definitely awesome.

Esahn Dulin:

I would go to the year 1940 and give yellow leggings to the first drawing of Robin. Thus saving Batman fans 70 years of a boy in short shorts.

Jin Royale:

I’d go back in time about 3 months ago with all of the TR Contest winning entries, shamelessly post them first in hopes that I’d get at least an Honorable Mention….*this* time.

Devil Child:

I’d go back in time to the year 1787 at the Philadelphia convention, and remove the First Amendment to the constitution.

I’m almost positive that many in the future would die from that, but their sacrifices will be totally worth it when the Supreme Court rules Internet Fan Fiction punishable by firing squad in 2004.

MacGyver:

First I’d have to learn ancient Egyptian….Then, with as much gold in my possession as possible, and dressed in age appropriate attire, I’d travel back in time to Egypt. More specifically, right after the death of King Tutankhamen. I would then find the person in charge of carving the hieroglyphics onto his sarcophagus, and pay them an absurd amount of gold to carve the lyrics to “Never Gonna Give You Up” (translated into ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics of course) all over it.

I will return to the future knowing that I have orchestrated the greatest Rick Roll in the history of mankind! Every single archaeologist who examines his sarcophagus, and every single tourist who comes to visit it in the museum in Cairo will all be Rick Rolled for generations and generations to come! I will have taken one of the most prized ancient artifacts of all time and turned it into one huge Rick Roll!

Warren G Harding:

Did you know the word “Easter” never appears in the Bible? Not once, except in the King James version where it was mistranslated from the word for “Passover.”
I know this because I’m an English nerd.
I would go back in time to the translator of that passage, and inform him of his mistake, thereby correcting this simple error…. and erasing Easter from existence.

Yes it’s nerdy, because Rob runs Topless Robot and Topless Robot just told me to have a Happy Easter. So (a) Easter must therefore be nerdy, and (b) by me taking this trip back in time, I have just ensure this contest… NEVER HAPPENED.

Bumpy:

Date: Late June 1947
Location: Roswell, New Mexico
Mission: Shenanigans

If I ever get a TR store up and running, I swear to god I’m making a “MISSION: SHENANIGANS” shirt available for purchase.

Jareth:

I would visit Bricken during his what-to-name-the-website session and suggest something else, as I’ve had to explain to students peeking on my computer that this site isn’t porn

Mysteron:

I’m going back 200,000 years and have sex with the Mitochondrial Eve, thus becoming the father of all humanity.
After I’ve accomplished that, I still have 4 minutes and 30 seconds to plant fake Pokemon bones all over the place.

Whoiseyevan:

Travel to 1928, dress in drag, and walk by the movie premiere for Charlie Chaplin’s film, “The Circus”, while calling my friends from the future on my cell phone, and asking them to watch me on Youtube.

LJSLarsson:

I would travel back to when Columbus first discovered America and convince him to name the place Nerdtopia Awesomeballs. And I would also give him my Topless Robot-shirt, to really make things weird.

Moviemeg:

I would go to February 4th of this year and tell myself, “Oh, by the way, San Diego Comic Con tickets go on sale tomorrow. No, there was not a peep about this on the SDCC RSS Feed, but trust me, you’ll thank me/you later.”

Yes, I am still fostering a deep bitterness.

Rosa E.:

Easy. I’d go back to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and pants Thomas Edison in front of an entire crowd of scandalized, sex-repressed Victorians. The scandal taints Edison’s career (at a time when it had already been damaged by the use of alternating current rather than Edison’s direct current), resulting in a leap ahead for his competitor Nikolai Tesla. The history of the twentieth century is changed for the much more awesome and glowing-coil-intensive.

Alternately, it just sets the stage for the most hilarious historical photograph ever. I could live with that.

And now the winners.

Alice_down_the_rabbithole:

I’d go to 1215 when Genghis besieged Yanjing (now Beijing) just to
scream “Kkkkkhhhhaaaannn!!!!” in a horribly tortured tone and then run
like hell before I got shot with an arrow or stabbed with a sword.

I’ve been running Topless Robot for more than three years, and this honestly may be the nerdiest goddamn contest entry I have ever, ever seen. Seriously, if I could mail it with the shirt, I’d send Alice a handshake, too.

Since there were a lot of more serious entries this time, I figured I’d best pick a serious winner, too. Besides Edison hate, the other thing there was a lot of was saving the lives of Jim Henson, Douglas Adams and other nerd luminaries who were taken from us too soon, but I think you’ll agree that this entry stood out from the rest:

BobJ:

I remember reading in Starlog back when the first BG series was cancelled that some kid killed himself over its cancellation. To this day, it’s bugged me. Now, I know he may have been more emotionally disturbed by other things, and may have just done it later in life. But if that was the sole reason? Think of all the nerdery he missed in the coming years. I’ve thought of all the nerd items I’ve held in my hand and put back, never to see or be able to afford again. Money that could be made with what I know now. Stuff I broke. Stuff my dad tossed out. Shit, stuff I tossed out. A lot of wishing I could go back and fix this or that. But when it came down to it, and it came time to push the button/throw the lever/accelerate to 88, I think I would go back and use my 5 minutes to convince that kid there would be more to come in life. At least his mind would be blown by a Goddamn Time Machine.

Well done, BobJ. Alice may gets the handshake, but I’d send you a Goddamn Time Machine if I could.

And there we go. Congrats to the winners and honorably mentioned, and thanks to everyone who entered.